Canon Ixus 105 review

A closer look at Canon’s stylish new shooter

This is one of those cameras that you fall in love with at first sight, instantly forgiving it for any minor imperfections. Similarities to the previous IXUS 95 are apparent with the addition of smoother top buttons that sit flush with the camera body. This is an exceptionally nice aesthetic touch, but does make using the buttons fiddly at times. Removing the previous optical viewfinder offers a 0.2" larger LCD (2.7"), which does a good job although does get hard to see in bright light.

The entry price of this camera is high for its specs on paper, but you can expect a large price drop almost instantly. This is due to there being a very crowded and competitive compact market. Far better alternatives are available at the sub-£200 price point, albeit not all as nice to look at.

Menus are broken down into three sections: full auto, program and video. The Full Auto mode will do all of the hard work for you, leaving you to compose your shots with the option of what size you want your images and whether to use the flash.

A scene mode is available within the Program mode, although selecting the various modes can be a little fiddly. The problem is the reliance on the d-pad’s controls, as they are a bit slow. Unless you are shooting in lower light or want a certain picture effect, the scenes don’t seem to make a world of difference over the full automatic settings.

Using the more advanced program settings opens up full access to ISO, exposure and focus settings. Having control over the focus will improve shots over the automatic settings. There is a small amount of room for beginners to learn here, but really not enough control to keep intermediate users interested.

Start up speeds are respectable for a compact in this price range. The zoom and focus sit somewhere in the middle for speed and reliability but overall deliver decent results. Continuous shooting is a useful setting for capturing faster-moving objects.

The wide-angle lens shoots great-looking landscape images. 4x optical zoom is perfect for composing group and portrait shots. You will find yourself moving closer for a lot of the more detailed shots though, to stay out of the digital zoom.

Offering a wide ISO range, it gives vibrant colour and crisp detail at its lowest end. Macro mode is surprisingly sharp, allowing you to shoot from as close as 3cm. Even in low light the camera still performs well and so long as you can maintain a steady hand and don’t want to crop into images, they are perfectly usable.

This model does lack an HD video setting, which has become almost standard on modern compacts in this price range. The 640 x 480 video is passable but suffers from soft focus, combined with a lack of optical zoom and features.

Battery and memory card are neatly stored underneath the camera behind a slider. We got 300+ images from full charge (60+ more than Canon states), perfect for a full day of shooting. Having no internal memory leaves your reliance fully on memory cards, but luckily a wide range is compatible.

With its sleek minimalist design and menus this compact is suited to a beginner. Although there is nothing new here it is good a all-round compact, let down slightly by its poor video capabilities and awkward controls.